By Kristy Loudon

At times, I sit at my desk frowning at the English 11 CCRS standards and our district curriculum guide, wondering how on earth I will ever fit it all in. In Focus, Schmoker solves this problem: He says we need to sit down with our departments and determine what is actually important. We need to establish how much reading, writing, and speaking our students need to do and be consistent within our PLCs.

Once again, seems extremely simple, right? Thankfully, it’s also effective and doable in every subject. The best part, as Schmoker says, is that “perfect execution of these processes is not required. The real power of this simple, multipurpose template is in its being done regularly and frequently.”